hadriel_logs | they are survivors

Entry tags:

they are survivors

Who: Amos and Maketh
What: Tracking down some lost property.
Where: Apartments
When: Evening
Warnings: tbd

It wasn't something she set out to find but rather something that - quite literally - fell into her hands and nearly shattered on the floor of Richie's pawn shop when she flinched away. The mirror felt odd in her hands. The compulsion to look was long gone, but she did anyway - out of curiosity, partially, but also because it was there and had nearly brained her.

Maketh's mirror was wrapped in a scarf and hidden away in her closet, jealously guarded. This one belonged to someone else.

It didn't take her long to figure out who was standing with that woman and the child. A daughter.

Maketh sighed, looked away, and spent some time bartering for ownership of the mirror. Later, she went to track down Amos.

Truthfully, she hadn't thought to go through his things after he'd left. Too much had been happening, one disaster after another, and--

There hadn't been time. And then there had been too much time and not enough space in her head to process it all.

Well. She can right this small thing, at least.

It takes her a bit to track Amos down at Tower Three and then to find the proper door. But eventually she does, and knocks firmly. "Amos, it's Maketh. I have something of yours."

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One of the jabberjays buzzes her, with a human scream, before Amos can get the door open. Even as he opens the door, he's fussing at the bird.

"--just Maketh, she's nice an' don't be teasin' her!" He turned a sunny grin on the woman in question, delighted to see his friend and curious as to why she'd sought him out. More often he was the one finding her. "Maketh! An' to what do I owe this pleasure, honey? C'mon in."

He stepped away from the door to gesture her in. The three-bedroom apartment looked a little sparse, still, though a pile of brightly-coloured pillows on the couch signaled his efforts at moving in and getting comfortable.

Maketh flinched back from the bird with a snarl, reaching for her gun. Amos opened the door before anything could come of it, but the expression on Maketh's face took a moment - perhaps a moment too long - to soften.

Stars, she hates those birds.

She clears her throat, brushing off her jacket in an attempt to save face.

"I--apologize. It startled me."

Nonetheless, she steps inside.

"I believe I have found something of yours."

Amos frowns at her reaction. "Please don't shoot 'em, honey. They're not that bad." He eyes her for a moment, then shuts the door and says in a much lower voice, "An' they're really damned useful, when I'm around."

Leaning against the door, he sighs and a small smile resumes on his lips. If she asks, he'll tell her exactly why, because while it's not exactly a secret he can talk to animals, few people properly consider the implications of it. Especially when it comes to birds or rodents, animals always getting into places they shouldn't, with such clever little brains. "I don't think I've lost anythin', sugar. What is it?"

"They are---disturbing. To me."

She hasn't forgotten how they screamed with the voices of her lieutenants when she first arrived. It's likely she'll never forget that. It keeps showing up in her nightmares.

But that isn't why she's come.

Silently, Maketh reaches into her coat and pulls the mirror out. She's wrapped it in an old shirt to protect the glass and holds it out to him.

Amos reaches for the wrapped object curiously, stepping closer to Maketh. It's not until he grips the handle and the shirt slips that he realizes what it is - and on the heels of that, exactly how she knew it was his.

The colour leeches from his face in an instant. His greatest secret, his most hidden weakness, and he cannot hide the dismay and fear that cross his pale face.

For a trembling moment he can't even move, before he drags in a breath and very gently finishes taking the mirror from her, mind reeling. He should have smashed this cursed thing the moment he'd been given it.

Maketh stands up very straight, hands clasped behind her back. Utterly professional. "It was in the pawn shop. I don't think anyone else saw it, but I cannot be sure."

Stick to the facts. Make it impersonal.

The pawn shop.

No telling how many people have seen it, then.

Amos stares through Maketh for a long silent moment, and the struggle with panic is writ large across his face before he can haul it in. He bites the edge of his lip, pulls in a shuddery deep breath, and straightens just a fraction, face going blank as he pulls everything in under hard control and locks it down. He doesn't need to panic (right now). This is not home. No-one here knows who he is.

But secrets are deadly and this is the first strike anyone will make against him the family he's hidden for so long not even Kameko can keep them safe.

"Arigatou," he says, and in his preoccupation he's slipped into Japanese, a habit when he pulls himself back into a quiet reserve learned from his grandmother. He has been bilingual from the cradle.

With anyone else it would be an unforgivable slip. Maketh thins her mouth, fighting the urge to bolt. She doesn't want to see the fight play out on Amos' face. It's only worse for how well he hides it and what it means that anything slips through at all.

Families can be taken. Families can be killed. She knows very well what it means.

"They're not here."

She's careful to look at the place beyond his shoulder.

"Nonetheless. You should probably break that."

"Ore wa sore o kowasubeki desu." He'd known it the moment he'd recieved the mirror. It was a liability, one he couldn't afford.

And yet....and yet he'd kept it, held onto it because it as a dream so dear, a promise and a hope both. They were...oh these two women in his life meant so much more than he could express the wife he adored and the daughter he cherished. His fingers clenched. It was weak of him, but. He couldn't.

He looked up at Maketh, his expression pleading. "Onegai."

He realized abruptly he wasn't speaking English, and wasn't sure if she'd understood him. Switching his brain back to the right languauge, he tried to steady his voice. "Please, Maketh. I...I can't."

It took her a moment to understand. Not just because of the sudden language shift. Maketh took a breath and let it out slowly. Stand up straight, soldier. Don't falter now. Not when you have witnesses.

Then she held out her hand.

"Okay."

She met his eyes briefly. She understood just enough.

Amos passed the mirror back, and his fingers lingered against tha handle. He wanted so badly to look, to see their faces again (count it up how long this time since he'd been back) but if he did he knew he wouldn't be able to let her break it. This was his fatal flaw, a weak heart he was ruled by.

When the moment came he flinched back, hands rising before he caught himself and dropped the back to his sides, swallowing the protest lodged in his throat.

Maketh took a breath and let it out. Then she slammed the mirror against the door. Once, twice. Just to be sure.

Glass clinked against the floor.

"It's done."

Amos swallowed, and double-checked to make sure he was in the right language befor telling her, voice thin: "thank you."

He rubbed a hand over his face and stood there a moment, before he moved to the kitchen. He needed a drink. A very strong drink. As he walked, he gave her the bare bones of an explanation. She deseved it. "Only my silence protects them. My mistress-" he paused, remembering the word had different connotations in normal usage than how he used it, "-my owner can only protect me. Bad enough she has a favorite slave. Worse to let him have a life outside her rule."

He reached into a cabinet, popped the cork on a bottle of something clear that burned exactly like vodka, and took a long pull. He surfaced coughing, and offered the bottle to Maketh blindly.

A slave.

Maketh was quiet for a long moment. Then she took a breath, let it out, and followed him. She made sure her face was empty. She took the bottle gladly and drank it just the same.

It burned a little. She preferred it that way.

"I worked very hard to avoid becoming a slave," Maketh said after a moment. "You must be very good at surviving, Amos."

Amos snorted. He was, just not the way she might think. "Mostly I'm lucky as hell. I ran away from home, got picked up by the local gang. The overseer had brought his daughter. She thought my accent was funny, she'd never heard it before. So her father bought me for her."

He reached for the bottle. "That was twenty years ago. Kameko was not a cruel mistress, at least." Whimsical, at times, but not cruel, and they had become friends over the years. "After her husband died she took over his position as boss of the international crime ring and the legitmate security business we run as a front. I've been a major pawn in her arsenal since her rise to power."

"Bodyguard, asassin, torturer, blackmailer, spy, thief, rabble-rouser, weapons runner, drug dealer, and a damn fine secretary."

Edited 2017-03-05 04:25 (UTC)

It wasn't entirely unlike being in the military, then. You had a chain of command, rules to follow, and the risk of death intrinsically tied to failure. Or at least that's the impression Maketh got. She gave Amos the bottle willingly.

He could probably use a drink, all things considered.

"You would have made a good intelligence operative for the Empire," Maketh said, softly. She wasn't sure that was a compliment.

Amos took a short pull and did not cough this time. He set the bottle down on the counter and rubbed both hands over his face. "Thank you, I think." Her tone left him uncertain if it was a good thing. "That's partly why the jays are useful when I'm around. I talk to them, they know faces, imitate voices. If you say it an' they hear it, I might know it too."

He turned to face Maketh with wry smile. "Pets, not so good on eavesdropping, but the jays? Damn, I know ops that would start another world war to have these."

Very few people realized exactly how useful for spying Amos's talent was.

Useful indeed.

Maketh rocked back on her heels.

"Can you ask them not to--make that noise around me?"

"What, holler?" Amos queried, letting his attempt at a smile drop. He dropped one hand to his pocket and pulled out his rosary, a long string of jade beads and silver links. He rubbed the worn crucifix in a familiar habit, then started rolling the beads between thumb and finger, drawing the string slowly through his hand. It was a calming fidget, one formed in childhood.

"I can try, but there's only two or three as'll do as I ask. S'like people, if you ask a stranger a favor, some of 'em will, some won't. I'll ask, though." He paused, then added thoughtfully, "They ain't...vindictive or anythin'. To them, copying screams is the same as any other species' warning call. They're mischevious, they'd imitate other bird alarm calls to watch 'em scatter, if there were any here. We're just another sort of animal to them, one with a lot of interesting noises to repeat."

Maketh shook her head. It was foolish and she knew it was foolish. And yet. "Vindictive or not, I do not care. They scream with voices I--do not want to remember. Not like that. So if you can....ask, then. Please. Do so."

Amos nodded. The boices were also a random choice by the birds, and fully half were the inhabitants of the cave. But all that he said was: "I'll ask, darlin'."

The likelihood of any of the birds not ever screaming at her again was very slim, but Amos would ask. He took another drink and then offered it to her. "Most people act funny when they find out I ain't a free man. So thanks for not." He had the feeling that either it didn't matter to Maketh or - given her earlier comment - slavery was much more common where she came from.

"Thank you."

That's all she could ask, in the end. Maketh took the offered drink and closed her eyes to down it. "It wouldn't help if I raged or...I don't know, did any of those foolish things that people do. We do not always control our fate. But you are here now and I am thankful for that."

That last was still somehow unexpected and Amos glanced at her with surprise before he smiled, soft and sad. Here now but he'd go home again and one day, maybe, he might live to retire and be granted freedom. But he doubted it. While Kameko was not a cruel woman, she was ambitious, and used herself and her pawns hard to stay on top, gain more power for the Inagawa-kai. Amos fully expected to take a bullet for her one day.

But Maketh was rght: nobody controlled their own fate.

"I...thank you, darln'." Amos looked down at the rosary in his hands. "I'm glad I've met you. You're a good friend, Maketh."

What a thing to say. Maketh gave him a faint smile. "You would not have thought so, if you had met me before. But I have--changed. Despite myself. I'm glad to have you back."

"Change is the only constant in life, mon cher," Amos told her, smiling again. He'd heard that homily a hundred times before, but it was true. Only the dead stayed the same, and then only in memory. They were alive and they would keep growing, and hopefully only for the better.

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they are survivors

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